(c) 1991 Wolf Faust Am Dorfgarten 10 W-6000 Frankfurt 50 Germany voice ++49-69-5486556 (GMT) Fido 2:243/43.5 (Wild Cat: ++49-6173-2544 HST,V.32bis) UUCP:cbmvax.commodore.com!cbmehq!cbmger!venus!wfaust Author's request ---------------- The entire driver package may be noncommercially redistributed, provided that the package is always distributed in its complete form. A small copy fee for media costs is allowed but any kind of commercial distribution is strictly forbidden! The author and any other distributor takes no responsibility for the consequences of its use. This driver package is shareware. You may feel free to use it without any charge. Anyway I ask you to donate some bucks (10$, that's 2,3% of my income as student ;-). There is much room left for further improvements, but without your support there may be no future revisions! So it's on you! You can allways get the latest version for free through the above given FIDO/UUCP addresses or send me a selfaddressed letter and $10 (DM 20). If you register yourself, you also get one update automaticly. Files you must get with this driver package: Star24Plus - Driver Readme - This textfile Readme.first - List of printers supported Test.lzh - script&pitcures for testing History ------- 04.03.91 Version 35 Rev 4 15.05.91 Version 35 Rev 5 - after selecting 360YDPI, no <360YDPI mode won't work anymore, because NumRows doesn't got reseted. fixed 30.07.91 Version 35 Rev 5.1 - joined drivers: 68000+68020 version in one driver! (no more preference switching for turboboard users ;-) - Kickstart 2 version string added 13.08.91 Version 35 Rev 5.2 - more textformat commands added Description: ------------ This driver is intended for all those Star & EpsonLQ compatible dot matrix printers out there. The driver is up to 2000% faster compared to commo's EpsonQ driver and supports more graphic modes (see below for additional features). General Information about Star24Plus (24-pin Epson compatible) -------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Dot matrix b&w/color printer (text and graphics). 2. Drives all Star&Epson compatible printers. 3. Linefeeds # of vertical dots printed. 4. Density XDPI YDPI XYDPI Comments 1 90 180 16200 2 120 180 21600 3 180 180 32400 4 120 360 43200 two pass 5 180 360 64800 two pass 6 360 180 64800 *1 7 360 360 129600 two pass *1 5. A PaperSize of 'Wide Tractor' selects a maximum print width of 13.6 inches (for wide carriage printers). 6. A papertype of 'SINGLE' ejects the sheet with a formfeed after every dump. This enables Epsons sheet cutting feature. Formfeed after a graphic dump is send according to the SPECIAL_NOFORMFEED flag. 7. Users which previously used the Star24Plus driver might search for the ".020" turbo version of the driver. Thanks to special code done in this driver, the driver automaticly makes use of the improved features of 68020/30/40 processors. There is absolutly no more need for a "turbo" version of the driver, because everything is built in. During initialisation, the driver finds out wich type of processor is currently used. If it is run on an improved processer (i.e. 68020,68030 or 68040), it uses the optimised turbo routines. These routines take care of new instructions and performance increase by using the processor cache. 8. There is now support for selecting different typefaces. Due to the extended character translation table, the character set selection commands (aFNT0 - aFNT10) are no longer really needed. The following fonts are yet supported (some only with additional cartridges): aFNT Code Star Epson Panasonic Seikosha 0 - ESC(B - Courier - Roman - Bold PS - S. Roman 1 - ESC(R - opt.typeface - Sans Serif - Sans Serif - S. Helv. 2 - ESC(K - Prestige - Courier - Courier - Courier 10 3 - ESC(A - Orator - Prestige - Prestige - Prest.Elite 4 - ESC(E - Script - Script - Script - Script 5 - ESC(H - - OCR-B - - OCR-B 6 - ESC(Y - - OCR-A - - OCR-A 7 - ESC(Z - - Orator - - Gothic 12 8 - ESC(J - - Orator S - - Orator 9 - ESC(6 - - - - 10 - ESC(C - - - - (PS: Excellence users watch out! These commands cause sleepless nights and much nice paper dumped ;-) 9. Timeout is now set according to the preference settings. How "timeout" is calculated: b&w or grey + 180YDPI = 20 seconds b&w or grey + 360YDPI = 40 seconds color + 180YDPI = 30 seconds color + 360YDPI = 60 seconds Commo's EpsonQ driver = allways 30 seconds 10. The driver uses the 24 pin modus for 90XDPI and 120XDPI graphic printings. This results in a better quality and a faster graphic dump compared to the 9 pin modus. 11. The driver now uses ESC-$ (abs. horiz. position) to advance the printerhead over white areas while doing graphic dumps. This results in a great speed improvement because less data must be send to the printer. Please note: this method might not be suitable to your printer and in case your printer gets ugly slow: this is not your driver. Use the "test" script to find out if your printer handles ESC-$ right with this driver. Bugs & Hints ------------ Well, after my first release of this driver, I have called Star (FRG) many times because of problems with various printers/settings (don't blame Star for this, it's just I don't have much Star printers handy ;-). So far, here are some things you should take care of: - Star NB24-10: with a printer ROM revsion up to 1.3 might face problems with the ESC-$ command ( see 11. above). If you have have such an old printer, ask your local Star distributor for an update. - Star LC24-10: sometimes the printer panel is not valid after a graphic dump, though, the printer is setup right internaly. So you shouldn't care much about the panel after a dump. There is no cure to this problem yet (except reseting the printer, wich is not legal directly after graphic dump). I hope Star finds a solution soon... - If you wan't to change internal things of this driver, watch out. Nearly all such utilities break with this driver! Patching Timeout and such things won't work with this driver!! Would be nice if people send me a postcard with a) which printer driver do you use succesfully (?) b) what kind of printer do you have? c) do you use a single sheet feeder? b) what's your printers dip switch setting? This might enable me helping other users with problems. Notes ----- *1 - in this mode the printer cannot print two consecutive dots in a row. It is recommended that you only use this density for B&W Shade dumps. -- english is not my native language, so don't call me names... --